Abstract
Cyberbullying is a major youth social problem over the world and it has been associated with a variety of negative outcomes. However, few studies investigated how offline peer victimization affects cyberbullying and the potential relations between family factors and cyberbullying remains unknown. The current study addresses this gap in knowledge by examining the victimized by peers is associated with higher moral disengagement which further promotes college student’s bullying online. A three-wave longitudinal study, each wave spanning six months apart, was conducted in a sample of 521 Chinese college students (Mage = 21.91, SD = 1.18, 59.3% females). Results of moderated mediation model shown that peer victimization at Time 1 predicted more cyberbullying at Time 3 through moral disengagement at Time 2, after controlling for demographic variables and cyberbullying at Time 1. Time 2 moral disengagement significantly mediated the association between Time 1 peer victimization and Time 3 cyberbullying. In addition, high level of negative parenting strengthened the effect of moral disengagement at Time 2 on cyberbullying at Time 3. The prevention and intervention for both offline and online bullying victimization are discussed.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported a grant by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31800938) to Kai Dou, a grant from Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2018A030313406) to Kai Dou, the 13th Five-Year Plan of Philosophy and Social Science of Guangzhou (2020GZYB92), the Key Research Items from Guangzhou University (YK2020025) and a grant from China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2018 M643038) to Yue Liang.
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Ming-Chen Zhang: Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft; Lin-Xin Wang: Methodology, Visualization; Kai Dou: Conceptualization, Writing - review & editing, Resources, Funding Acquisition; Yue Liang: Data curation, Methodology, Supervision and Validation.
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Zhang, MC., Wang, LX., Dou, K. et al. Why victimized by peer promotes cyberbullying in college students? Testing a moderated mediation model in a three-wave longitudinal study. Curr Psychol 42, 7114–7124 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02047-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02047-1